Memorial of Áqá Ḥusayn-i-Áshchí (Cook of the Household)

Among the believers of the inner household whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá remembers in *Memorials of the Faithful* is Áqá Ḥusayn-i-Áshchí — a man whose entire adult life was given to the daily kitchen work of the prophetic Household.

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The title *Áshchí* is the Persian for *cook.* It was, in the nineteenth-century household, an honourable trade but not a distinguished one. The cook was the man who rose first, lit the kitchen fire, prepared the bread and the rice, and delivered the meals to the family table. He served from the kitchen door inward and was rarely seen from the household side.

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Áqá Ḥusayn took up this work in the household of Bahá'u'lláh during the Adrianople period and continued in it through the removal to 'Akká and through the long decades of the imprisonment in the citadel and afterwards. He was, in the informal hierarchy of the household, the one whose hands prepared the food the Holy Family ate.

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The Master's *Memorial* is brief but pointed. He records the following qualities. *His patience.* The strain of cooking for a household of perhaps fifteen souls under conditions of prolonged poverty, intermittent shortage, and political strain was substantial. Áqá Ḥusayn bore it for thirty years without recorded complaint.

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*His skill.* He could produce, from the limited materials the household budget allowed, meals that were both sufficient and appetising. The Master notes particularly his ability to make a small quantity of meat go a great distance, his careful management of the household stores, and his unfailing readiness to receive unexpected guests at the meal — for the Master frequently brought home, without warning, additional persons who would need to be fed.

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*His piety.* The cook's hands were the hands of a believer. The food that was prepared was prepared with the prayer of the believer. Áqá Ḥusayn was observed by the household to keep, even in the heat and pressure of the kitchen, the inward composure of a man whose work was an act of devotion rather than a burden of necessity.

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The Master adds a small note. *At the kitchen door, in the steam of the day's cooking, his faith was tried as elsewhere it is tried in the prison.* The kitchen was, for Áqá Ḥusayn, the prison-cell of his own particular discipline. He bore it with the dignity that other believers brought to other trials.

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He died in 'Akká, in the household he had served for thirty years. The Master closes the *Memorial* with a few words of unfeigned affection: *He was loved by the believers, by the Holy Family, by the Pen of the Most High. His ascent was attended by all our prayers.*

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